Israel Cuts Ties Despite Its Face

Ariel Sharon has instructed his government to cut all ties with the Palestinian Authority. Good idea? Bad idea? Or just no thought put into this new policy at all?

I would venture the guess that plenty of thought was put into the decision. Just nothing that includes critical thinking or a heroic shift in Israeli policy in an attempts to get us anywhere in the name of peace.

Don't get me wrong, the Palestinians have to make some major shifts too. But I'll pre-empt my god damned right-wing friends and family, who will offer the standard line of no criticism of Israel till the Palestinians get their shit together. This is the same bullshit logic that Sharon continues to promote, keeping us locked into the status quo.

The point is the Palestinians have a valid narrative as well. With Israel continuing to ignore it, rather than engage it in dialogue, we're missing two things.

First, this is a statement that the other's narrative can be dismissed, a point heard loud and clear by the Palestinian enemy. Second, we continue to be the Zionist enemy since, instead of asking what this means, it suits us to ignore or rally against it because it falls harshly upon our ears.

We are the Zionist enemy. Israel's continued building and expansion of settlements is a colonial enterprise, one that does not serve any economic or social purpose. As for security, the settlements are used as a bargaining chip, we say when terrorism stops we'll withdraw.

The reflexive statement is terrorism will stop when you withdraw. Same words, different order, different meaning and little to bridge the two highly varied doctrines.

No dialogue means no chance to hear and be heard. Israel continues to do itself a disservice , pushing the Palestinians into a corner from which they'll emerge carrying the banner of human rights, under which they will be victorious.

The doctrine of one person, one vote - along with equal rights with citizenship for all - as the alternative to an occupation will prove most difficult to argue against.

Israel spells out her own death turning this conflict into a waiting game. The numbers and international tide is building against us. The Jewish banner of the Holocaust is already starting to lose its poignancy within the Jewish world, let alone within the gentile masses. Claiming victimhood will not do us much good for ever.